Technicians were to convert the IBM ticket vending machines at the Fremont BART station at midnight Monday.

BART spokesman Ron Rodriguez said officials were keeping their "fingers crossed" in hopes the conversion would be successful.

It's been about four months since BART officials discovered a scam that tricked the machines into thinking they were getting $20 bills when they weren't. Officials stopped the machines from accepting the bills at all.

Jury seeks death for

minister's wife's killer

OaklandAn Alameda County Superior Court jury recommended that Giles Albert Nadey, 34, of Hayward die for murdering the wife of a Pleasanton minister in her new Alameda home.

The 12-member jury deliberated for less than three hours before deciding Monday that Nadey should be sent to death row for fatally stabbing 24-year-old Terena Fermenick on Jan. 18, 1996. Nadey had been hired to clean the carpets in the couple's new home.

Last February, a different jury convicted Nadey of Fermenick's murder. Two weeks later, the same jurors deadlocked in the penalty phase - seven in favor of death, four for life in prison and one undecided. Superior Court Judge Albert Delucchi declared a mistrial in the penalty phase. The retrial began last month.